"Embrace the suck" 'Rummy's dummies.'

[rodeodance]

Iraq's battlefield slang
A list of soldiers' lingo, including 'embrace the suck' and 'Rummy's dummies.'
By Austin Bay
January 28, 2007

PRIESTS, PROSTITUTES, psychologists, cops, jazz musicians, poker players. Every trade has its jargon and "insider lingo."

Soldier slang, however, has a peculiar appeal. That's understandable. Waging war is a risky, all-encompassing endeavor — physically, emotionally and psychologically. War reveals humankind at its best and its worst, and war-fighter slang, reflects the bitter, terrifying, sometimes inspiring hell of it.

Every war adds something new — and often obscene — to the soldiers' vocabulary. World War II-era Hollywood dialogue glamorized (and often scrubbed) combat slang, but the warrior's rhetorical swagger, irony and biting humor predate film by several millenniums.

Often, new idioms and phrases describe old, difficult truths. Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz said that war is the realm of "friction." World War II veterans invoked Murphy's Law: "If something can go wrong, it will." As you'll see in the brief lexicon I've pulled together below, the New Greatest Generation (the generation fighting the war on terror) dubs it "the suck."

"Embrace the suck" isn't merely a wisecrack; it's an encyclopedic experience rendered as an epigram, gritty shorthand for "Face it, soldier. I've been there. War ain't easy. Now deal with the difficulty and let's get on with the mission."
........
Air jockey: Fighter pilot or a fixed-wing pilot. On rare occasions, might refer to a helicopter pilot....................

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-bay28jan28,0,4315039.story?coll=la-opinion-center

[MADem]

1. What good kids, they're RECYCLING!! BOHICA is too good a term to let it go by the wayside...

"Caspar" and "brain bucket" and "O dark thirty" are old favorites, too, as is "single digit midget." And with the crap that the reserves are taking, that old expression "weekend warrior" doesn't apply nowadays. "Jersey barrier" isn't really slang, that is what they're called.

Some of the new ones are pretty amusing, though. I get a kick out of "Mookie" for Muqtada al-Sadr. Funny, we used to call Iran's Shah "Fred" but that was because we figured SAVAKH was everywhere, and listening....!

Hajji is one expression that is unfortunately morphing into rather a smartass term, the way it's being used. The word technically means 'Pilgrim' and is used to describe someone who has made the Hajj to Meccah. The way the servicemembers are tossing that word around isn't really good. To use it as a form of address, with associated ritual politeness and courtesy, is a measure of great respect, but the careless way they use it, it's plain that it's not being used with that level of knowledge or meaning, and I'm sure the locals know it.